Voices, auras, materializations. Is she a mere trickster, a charlatan who plays on the anguish of the bereaved, or perhaps a hysteric who suffers delusions? No matter, in the shabby brick precincts of East London, the seances have won the pretty, blond medium Flora Milk local acclaim, and soon she will find herself more comfortably situated in the Victorian household of Sir William Preston, a researcher of some renown in psychic phenomena. Indeed, his wife Minny, who is still grieving the loss of her infant daughter, will embrace the gifted sixteen-year-old as her "protegee."

At once a ghost story and a psychological thriller, this elegant novel again demonstrates that Michele Roberts is a literary talent of the highest order.